Elizabeth Warren returns Massachusetts Senate seat to Democrats

Elizabeth Warren beat out Scott Brown in the U. S. Senate election, reclaiming a seat that Democrats lost two years ago after the death of Ted Kennedy and making history as the first female Senator of Massachusetts.

“I won’t just be your senator, I will be your champion,” the winner said at her headquarters in the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, where her supporters, sure of victory and ready to celebrate, had been waiting for election results since early evening.

Governor Deval Patrick was among the first to show up at Warren campaign headquarters. He said he is “consciously optimistic” and that a victorious outcome of the race would owe itself to the “strategic gifts” of Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh. He set up the party’s grassroots campaign in Massachusetts after Brown won the 2010 special election.

Before the polls closed, Steven Tolman, president of the AFL-CIO Massachusetts chapter that endorsed Brown two years ago, also came into the scene. Tolman, whose chapter now supports Warren, explained that Brown doesn’t seem to him a “charmer”, unlike Warren, who is fighting for local labor groups and working families.

Supporters in the crowd said they are for Warren because she is going to protect “ordinary people who have been cheated by a system,” defend women’s rights, and attack Wall Street CEOs “ who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs.”

At 10 pm, when final election figures appeared on the big screens in the hotel’s hall, the crowd went wild. The audience responded to the 54 percent for Warren against the 46 for Brown with an ear-splitting applause, shrill and jubilant yelling, and chants of “Warren! Warren!”

She gave her acceptance speech only half an hour after this breaking news, letting the other party leaders took the stage first.

Warren flitted in with a big smile and tears of joy on her face. It seemed like she was about to cry. Her voice quavered, and she started, “To all of you, this is your night. This is your victory… I didn’t build that, you built that.”

“It was exactly 50 years ago tonight that Senator Ted Kennedy was first elected to the United States Senate,” Warren went on cheering her supporters. “That night, he said that he would dedicate all his strength and will to serve you in the United State Senate. For 47 years, he lived up to that promise. Tonight, I pledge to do the same.”

It was the most hotly and bitterly contested U. S. Senate race of the year. The candidates blasted each other with tough TV ads and spent almost $70 million between them. This political fight became the most expensive in the history of the state.